Another full day! Today was filled with doctor appointments and traveling from here to there. Once again, my body was supercharged on minimal sleep and I was ready to take on the day.
I had a follow up appointment with Dr. Kukinoor, the Oncologist this morning. This is the second time I have seen him outside of the hospital. We went over the medication list and made some alterations including reducing the steriods as well as adjusting my Coumadin levels. I have noticed over the past day or so that my right ankle and leg is starting to get really swollen again from the blood clot. This time the ankle doesn’t hurt, but it definitely is something that needed to be addressed.
I have an appointment set for tomorrow to get another ultrasound as a safety precaution. In addition, I was able to schedule the B12 shots, and fertility shot (temporarily puts me into menopause) for next week as well as my second official round of chemo. I finally feel like we are moving FORWARD to battle the actual cancer instead of dealing with all of the distractions along the way! For the second round of chemo, the doctor changed from Cisplatin to Carboplatin. The two chemo drugs are very similar, but apparently the “carbo” has less nausea associated, which would be an issue for me especially since the “heaving” motion of throwing up could cause some severe pain in my rib area.
This afternoon I went with my parents to the Village on Camelback, the place where I use to workout. For those of you that know me, know well that I practically lived there! Today was the first time since January that I stepped foot inside the club. I was immediately greeted by familiar faces asking where I have been and then others acknowledging that they had heard the news of the diagnosis. It felt really good strolling back to the locker room and putting on workout clothes as if nothing had changed. I guess this time, the difference was that I was wearing a large pink brace on top of my clothes. I figured the only type of exercise that would be safe at this point is sitting on the recumbnant bike. My friend Erika and I rode the bikes for about 30 minutes. I felt great at first, but then after 20 minutes or so started getting really hot from the pink brace and a little lightheaded. The woosey feeling may have been from the mix of the painkillers that I had taken earlier that afternoon, or from moving my legs around in unfamiliar circles . Either way, despite the fact that I didn’t feel particularly better after the “workout”, I did feel like I had accomplished something that was good for my health and mind. It was also beneficial to to burn off some of the extra cookie and sweet calories that I have been adding on at alarming rates. Oops! Shoot! Too bad tonight I couldn’t help myself when I got home and ate a huge pint of chocolate sorbet for dinner. Oh well…Dr. Kukinoor DID say that I should be consuming alot of calories right now. I am going to blame it on these damn steriods!